http://www.space.com/30855-alien-life-search-kepler-megastructure.html

"Astronomers have begun using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a system of radio dishes about 300 miles (483 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, to hunt for signals coming from the vicinity of KIC 8462852, a star that lies 1,500 light-years from Earth."

Does anybody know if using Seti@Home will help with this effort? Or is all the processing handled internally by the ATA?

Does anybody know if using Seti@Home will help with this effort? Or is all the processing handled internally by the ATA?

AFAIK they don't share.

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Ah, thanks for the reply!

- SETi@home is a small project (portion) of SETi institute...
- so far SETi@home has got only data from Arecibo...an effort is made to also use GBT the same way as Arecibo - we'll know more in future!
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

- SETi@home is a small project (portion) of SETi institute...
- so far SETi@home has got only data from Arecibo...an effort is made to also use GBT the same way as Arecibo - we'll know more in future!
;)

No, SETI@home has nothing to do with the SETI Institute.
Tullio

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Another interesting article on the SETI Institute work on KIC 8462852, linked below. Dr. Gerald Harp, senior scientist, suggests that either a remarkably recent collision in space or extraterrestrial intelligence is responsible for the star's dimming.
Natural debris would tend to settle, over time, into a ring around the star, instead of the separate bodies that appear to be present. Dust from such a collision is expected, and was looked for, but has not been found.
The SETI Institute monitoring of this star is planned to continue through the end of the month. If they found something, it would presumably continue indefinitely.

http://www.universetoday.com/122971/seti-institute-undertakes-search-for-alien-signal-from-star-kic-8462852/

These objects could be giant planets or brown dwarfs could they not. How big are they, how many are there, what distance are they from the star ???

At 1500 light years will we ever know ?

No, SETI@home has nothing to do with the SETI Institute.
Tullio

Sic transit Gloria !

They are using the ATA to watch the star, while it is not visible by Arecibo.Maybe the GBT could watch it.
Tullio

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These objects could be giant planets or brown dwarfs could they not. How big are they, how many are there, what distance are they from the star ???

At 1500 light years will we ever know ?

It's believed that the largest of the objects must be about half the diameter of the star, or about 650,000 miles, otherwise it couldn't block out enough of the star to dim it by 22 percent.
Giant planets and brown dwarfs aren't expected to come much larger than Jupiter, probably not much in excess of 100,000 miles. Beyond that size they are thought to collapse in on themselves and become denser.

The problem is, we think we know all there is to know about star formation until an observation like this throws a monkey wrench into the pot. Then astronomers and other scientists put their thinking caps back on and start all over again.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

How about Atacama in Chile and the VLA in New Mexico. If we have not yet heard their "we are here" beacon then we won't with further listening. We are not going to be able to eavesdrop at that distance.

Brown dwarfs are objects which have a size between that of a giant planet like Jupiter and that of a small star. In fact, most astronomers would classify any object with between 15 times the mass of Jupiter and 75 times the mass of Jupiter to be a brown dwarf.

From the internet.

Could be in really close, may have a lower mass density than normally expected. Would a molten blob be possible ?

A typical white dwarf has a carbon and oxygen mass similar to the Sun, but is much smaller in size (similar to the Earth). It is much hotter (25,000 K), but because of its small size its luminosity is low.

I presume that these have been rejected by appropriate experts due to the hype about ET-Constructed possible structures. Why and how have these and other Binary (N-ary) stars been eliminated once again ?

@admins:
can we merge this topic with: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=78328 ?

They are using the ATA to watch the star, while it is not visible by Arecibo.Maybe the GBT could watch it.
Tullio

not sure if they'll get Arecibo so soon!
link: http://www.naic.edu/vscience/schedule/scedfra2.htm

but there are some FREE dates on GBT:
https://dss.gb.nrao.edu/schedule/public
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

This star is in the northern sky. Arecibo and ALMA can't see it. All big telescopes, optical or radio, have observing times scheduled in advance and cannot change the schedules. This is a chance for minor and independent telescopes like ATA to earn their keeps.
Tullio

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If we have not yet heard their "we are here" beacon then we won't with further listening. We are not going to be able to eavesdrop at that distance.

Well, I guess that whole general "neighborhood" in the sky will be scanned.

p.s. If something is picked up, I think this may increase interest in getting a more sensitive device set up off Earth.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Assume for a moment that there are a number of megastructures in orbit of the star KIC 8462852. It would presumably be desirable to keep track of their positions in space, relative to the star, and to one another. It would probably also be worthwhile to track any space debris that might impact and damage the megastructures.
It seems reasonable that they might use something like radar to do this. Our own space surveillance radars are the strongest radio signals emitted from this planet. They are far stronger than any conventional communications signals. It seems that we might stand a reasonable chance of receiving these signals, when they happened to be surveying that portion of space directly between 'Tabby's Star' and Earth.

If we have not yet heard their "we are here" beacon then we won't with further listening. We are not going to be able to eavesdrop at that distance.

Well, I guess that whole general "neighborhood" in the sky will be scanned.

p.s. If something is picked up, I think this may increase interest in getting a more sensitive device set up off Earth.

maybe it would get more funding for the development of FULL ATA completion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array#Key_science_goals
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

Perhaps an advanced civilization decided that reorganizing their solar system was easier than building a Dyson sphere.
So - keeping in mind that this star is over 4 times brighter than ours, how large of a sail would you need to move a planet to a more comfortable orbit?